How history could have gone if there had been smartphones

Around 2500 BC. For the twentieth time that day, Noah opens the weather app on his smartphone: sweltering heat and sunshine for the next ten days. As is usually the case in this area. What should he then do with this mail, Urgency high!, that he should build a huge boat because it’s going to rain 40 days and 40 nights straight? And even on a ship 300 cubits long, how could all the animal species, of which Noah googled there be millions, fit? He decides to wait and see. When it – stupid weather app – suddenly starts to pour, he just manages to build a measly wooden boat and work through the list of animal species up to B. Unfortunately, the beavers and bark beetles also go on board with it.

Jerusalem in the year 33. Jesus of Nazareth, religious activist and social media phenomenon, is arrested. Governor Pontius Pilate reaps a huge shitstorm for his assessment that the guy is actually harmless, which Peter – one of Jesus’ oldest followers – does not leave unimpressed: He hastily unfollows Jesus on Facebook, on Twitter and on Instagram. A crowing of the cocks – chosen by Peter as a reminder tone for his mobile phone – makes him painfully aware of his failure. As the manager of Jesus’ idle social media channels, Peter makes amends from now on and, above all, makes a name for himself with the open letters he sends all over the world.

Eisenach, 1522. At the Wartburg, Martin Luther translated the entire New Testament from ancient Greek into German – in eleven weeks. Crazy, think his critics: It would have been much faster with Google Translate. When it came out that Luther took artistic liberties with the translation and tried to “watch the people in the mouth”, his work was accused of being imprecise and populist and was quickly stamped out by the publishers Cranach and Döring. It is Luther’s second major failure after the 95 theses he posted on Wittenberg’s website were straight away deleted by the city.

Salzburg, 1762. The Tiktok videos of the Mozart family go viral. Daughter Nannerl, eleven, and son Wolferl, six, play the piano so quickly that it is a pleasure, not only over the classic Tiktok length of 15 seconds, but sometimes even over a full minute. This brings the family a lot of fame, but also a lot of criticism: Little Wolferl in particular is put on display in front of the whole world in a way that is obviously not good for the child, which is evidenced by his fidgety and foul language. When the boy announced that one day he wanted to publish a three-hour opera on Tiktok (a total of 720 films of 15 seconds each), concerned followers started an internet petition called “The boy needs some fresh air”. Finally, the parents bow to public pressure, delete the Tiktok channel and prescribe physical exercises for the children. Wolferl also proves to be highly talented with the ball, but unfortunately dies much too early – tragically 123 years before the founding of the first Salzburg football club.

Versailles, 1789. On her Instagram account, the French Queen Marie Antoinette lets the people participate in her dazzling life every day, presents breathtaking jewelry, precious dresses and hairstyles so steep that you can only view them in portrait format on your mobile phone. What the careless queen doesn’t pay attention to: Anyone who constantly participates in the supposedly perfect life of others on Instagram will quickly become unhappy in their own comparatively meager existence – especially if they themselves, like most French people at the time, don’t even have fast WiFi at home . When Marie Antoinette deletes her account, it is already too late: the French are blowing a revolution and cutting off their internet connection once and for all.